FRAN HORNAK (pictured): After a decade of small children and working from home, I’m conscious that my interest in grooming has plummeted. I need a reboot

After a decade of small children and working from home, I’m conscious that my interest in grooming has plummeted. I need a reboot. 

Where better to turn for the latest tips and general sense of youthfulness than TikTok?

After an initial deep dive, I’m struck by how nostalgic TikTok beauty is. People are still recommending putting toothpaste on spots and Vaseline everywhere.

The only development seems to be contouring – professional-level highlighting and shading, intended to make teenage cheeks vanish in selfies.

My current contouring level is novice, so this is high on the agenda.

But first, hair.

SUNDAY

Tonight, I trial ‘leggings’ curls. This is what it sounds like – parting your hair and, with the gusset of a pair of leggings sitting on your head, plaiting one section of hair around each of the legs.

It is demonstrated by a serene blonde girl, who doesn’t seem to see anything unusual in the process. 

‘Now take the butt part and turn it into a hat,’ she instructs – much to the delight of my children (all boys under ten) – once the plaiting is done.

I duly tuck my trouser plaits into the butt part, so that I look like I’m wearing a Tudor beret. In the morning my hair is wavy, but no more so than if I had plaited it normally. 

On a positive note, the spectacle has shown my sons the mammoth backstage effort involved in maintaining female hair.

Leggings curls are demonstrated by Alexis Tolme (pictured). The spectacle shows my sons the mammoth backstage effort involved in maintaining female hair

MONDAY

I go to Mary Phillips – Hailey Bieber’s make-up artist – for contouring tricks. 

After repeatedly watching her daub her face like a tiger, and then magic it away with the rapid, pouty blending that TikTok influencers excel at, I’m still no wiser. My own effort looks awful. 

Mostly, I feel sorry for teenagers. It was bad enough avoiding a Maybelline Dream Matte Mousse tideline in 2000.

I go to Mary Phillips (pictured) – Hailey Bieber’s make-up artist – for contouring tricks. Here she is seen sculpting her face

TUESDAY

I am late to ‘soap brows’ – using bar soap on a clean mascara brush to fluff out brows. 

On my first attempt I use Dove, which looks as if I’ve got paint in my eyebrows. 

But once I’ve switched to Pears soap I’m quite pleased – my brows do look naturally thicker. Then my son asks why I have ‘dragon eyes’, and I rethink.

Read Related Also: Plane over Seattle appears to be on fire in social media images

I am late to ‘soap brows’ – using bar soap on a clean mascara brush to fluff out brows (pictured)

WEDNESDAY

Since Monday’s contouring was a flop, I try ‘fake tan contouring’ instead – hoping my fake bone structure will stay put for days. 

I watch my chosen TikToker slap patches of dark tan on to her cheekbones and begin more urgent blending. 

As she works, she warns: ‘You want it to look good enough to go outside and no one be like “What the f**k is on her face?”‘

This is sound life and beauty advice, so I blend frantically. Hours later my face looks tanned, but not – disappointingly – as if I’m sucking a straw the whole time.

Since Monday’s contouring was a flop, I try ‘fake tan contouring’ (pictured) instead – hoping my fake bone structure will stay put for days

THURSDAY

I’m going out tonight, so when the tutorial on perfect eyeliner doesn’t deliver I try another TikTok hack – removing botched eyeliner with Sellotape. 

I accidentally wax an eyelash, and still have eyeliner on my temple.

The tutorial on perfect eyeliner by smudging it out to the side doesn’t deliver

I’m going out tonight, so when the tutorial on perfect eyeliner doesn’t deliver I try another TikTok hack – removing botched eyeliner with Sellotape (pictured)

FRIDAY

Today on TikTok someone by the name of Hayley Buix warns me, in such a sassy voice that I feel compelled to obey, ‘If you’re not blending your blush up to your under-eye area you’re missing out. Just sayin’.’

Despite the comments declaring, ‘I can get this look by crying!’, I follow the instructions, smudging blusher upwards into my under-eye concealer. 

It feels odd but looks pleasantly glowy – like I’ve exercised.

Today on TikTok someone by the name of Hayley Buix (pictured) warns me, in such a sassy voice that I feel compelled to obey, ‘If you’re not blending your blush up to your under-eye area you’re missing out. Just sayin’

SATURDAY

I’m now exhausted with groom-scrolling. 

The ideas that I won’t repeat? How about a layer of powder between mascara coats (lumpy)? 

There’s pinching my lip line for a poutier pout (painful) and faking freckles with brown eyeliner (looks like I’ve drunk a cappuccino too enthusiastically). The only tip I’ll retain is the upwardly mobile blusher.

I end the week slightly relieved that I don’t have a daughter, and that TikTok did not exist in the noughties when I might have shared my own fake-tan tricks.

There’s pinching my lip line for a poutier pout (painful) and faking freckles with brown eyeliner [pictured] (looks like I’ve drunk a cappuccino too enthusiastically)